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Tutorial
This is a guide that will help you get going in the game. The first thing you should do is read the rules and then create a "character". Finally, you'll need to post a wiki of your "character" and register to the message board as your "character". Rules The game is played by sending messages of what you want to do to the GM. You have to be signed up to the message board to do this. The GM has a post at the top of each board, so it shouldn't be a problem to message them. Now then, each "turn" in the game is a season. There are only two season on the Island of Dupree: spring and fall. So a turn is a season and two seasons equal a year. Turn=season and two seasons=year. Now, what can you do during a season? Well its (sort of) simple. You can take two actions. And there are two different things you can do, essentially. *Starting constructing a building *Send a diplomat to a village or tribe So you can build two structures, send two diplomats, or build a structure and send a diplomat. You can also use your units. They have their own actions. Diplomacy with other player characters do not take a game turn and take place on the message board. For instance, you start the game with a city and a warrior. You probably won't see any neighboring villages yet, so you can begin building a barracks and a farm. You can also move your warrior up to his maximum movement (2 in this case). If you encounter a villager, tribesman, or another player, your movement will end while you size up their units. Now in this example, you've taken your two actions (build two buildings) and used your units (moved the warrior). But how do you determine how you are moving the warrior? You'll notice that in the graphic to the right there is a pink hex surrounded by green hexes. Each kingdom has their own unique color, so that means that the pink hex is a city. The poorly drawn axe in the city hex means a warrior is garrisoned there. So we have a warrior garrisoned in a city surrounded by grassland. I have numbered the hexes around the warrior, because this is how movement works. You would send a message to the GM saying "Build a farm in city. Build a barracks in city. Move warrior to 1 and 1." That message tells the GM you are building a farm and a barracks and they move to the 1 position, which is north. Why are there 2 1s in themessage? Well, your warrior has 2 movement, so he can move to position 1, then he decides to move in the same direction again so writes 1. Basically the numbers are how you communicate what direction you want to go. So just always imagine there are numbers around your units 1-6 clockwise that indicate movement. If you wanted to move that warrior up then right, you would message "Move warrior to 1 and 2". Once you have more than one of a certain unit, they will be numbered on the map to tell them apart. An alternate to giving commands would be downloading the map and drawing out your movements in ms paint, which is perfectly acceptable. Different Terrain Types There are quite a few different terrain types in the game. #'Lava:' This will kill or destroy anything it touches. #'Grassland:' Regular terrain. If you start a city on this terrain, you get 1 free food. #'Fertile Grassland:' This is a requirement to build farms. Farms are built directly onto the hex. #'Rocky: '''Rough terrain. If you start a city on this terrain, your city gains +1 AC. #'Mountainous:' Impassable. Only dwarves can build cities on this terrain type. #'Water:' Impassable #'Fertile Water:' Can build a fishing boat on these hexes for 1 food. #'Forest:' Rough terrain. You can build a lumbermill on this hex. #'Iron Ore:' Rough terrain. You can build a mine on this hex. #'Rivers/Streams:' Rough terrain. Streams/rivers are dark blue lines that cut through various hexes. If a river or stream cuts through a hex even a little bit, then it is considered a river/stream hex. If you start your city on a river/stream hex, you get +1 happiness and can trade with other cities/villages connected to the water without a trading post. Also, this is the only benefit you get. If you start a city on a grassland with a river in it, you only get the river/stream bonus. #'Stone:' Rough terrain. You can build a quarry on this hex. You might have noticed that some of the terrain is counted as "rough" terrain. What this means is that all movement through rough terrain is reduced by one. This only applies once. So if a unit had three movement but was surrounded by rocky terrain with rivers in it, they could still move two hexes, because rough terrain only reduces movement by one. Also, to build on hexes (like forests or fertile grasslands) you must have a city or colony within sight (more on this later). Buildings Below are a list of all the buildings accessible in Tier 1, along with their costs and construction time. Check the wikis for special building uses and rules: *'Barracks:' 20 lumber, 1 year build time *'Barracks Racial Upgrade:' 40 lumber, 20 ore, 1 season *'City' *'Colony:' 10 lumber, 10 stone, 10 ore, 1 food, 1 year *'Farm:' 20 lumber, 1 season *'Fishing Boat:' 20 lumber, 1 season *'Lookout Tower:' 40 lumber, 1 year *'Lumber Mill:' 40 lumber, 1 year *'Mine:' 40 lumber, 1 year *'Quarry:' 40 lumber, 1 year *'Road:' 20 stone, 1 season *'Sewers:' 40 stone, 1 year *'Smithy:' 20 lumber, 20 ore, 1 year *'Tavern: 40 lumber, 1 year *Temple:' 40 stone, 1 year *'Trading Post: 40 lumber, 20 stone, 1 year *Wall: 40 lumber or stone, 1 year With build times, it counts the season that you started building it. So say on your first season you build a road. It will be there at the start of the next season. So it essentially only takes 1 turn to build and will be there at the beginning of your next turn. Each building has its own function. Taverns, for instance, give you 1 happiness and allow you to produce rogues. Buildings that produce units require 1 food for each unit that they produce. Each unit you have adds 1 to population, which creates unhappiness. Units This is the following list of Tier 1 units that can be produced and the building that produces them (it is recommended that you look at each unit's page just to see what their basic commands are): *Priest(unique to race):' Cost- 1 food, Produced by- temple, Time to train- 1 year *'Rogue:' 1 food, tavern, 1 year *'Racial Upgrade Unit(unique to race): 1 food, barracks racial upgrade, 1 year *Warrior:' 1 food, barracks, 1 year Units can be used as soon as they are produced. They can move up to their movement speed and then use an ability or perform an action. Actions are listed on the individual unit's page (such as engage or pursue). Each unit represents roughly 50 individual citizens. Instead of a lone warrior, there is actually a small army of them fighting for you. Likewise, instead of a single rogue, consider it more like a vast network of spies, thieves, and operatives that work together. Unit Experience and Level Ups Every unit gains experience as they perform actions. Rogues gain experience for espianoge, while warriors and priests gain experience for using abilities and actions against their enemies. When a unit attains enough experience, they level up. At the end of each season, any units that have leveled up are given choices on how to improve them. Upgrades that units gain at level up fall into one of three categories: *New abilities (or upgrades to existing ones) *New actions (or upgrades to existing ones) *Statistic increases All upgrades can only be taken once. The maximum level a unit can attain is level 3. Experience and level ups are all very much "under the hood" meaning that you will not be presented with how much experience a unit has or when they will level. The upgrades are also not known ahead of time. Unit Statistics Every unit has its physical statistics listed, and they each perform a different function: *'DMG:' The damage that a unit inflicts in combat. *'AC:' A unit's armor class is how much damage they negate from an attack. Armor works against every attack and is never destroyed, although some abilities ignore armor. Even if a unit is attacked 3 times, his armor works against every attack. *'HP:' A unit's hit points is how much damage it can take before it is destroyed. *'S:' A unit's sight is how far they can see. S 1 means they can see all adjacent hexes. *'M:' A unit's movement is how many hexes they can move each season in favorable terrain. Remember, whenever a unit encounters a foreign unit (villager, tribesman, or other player's unit) they will stop they movement and begin sizing up the opposition. This only happens with groups that are neutral towards you. Friendly villagers/tribesmen and allied players will not stop your movement. However, a unit cannot make you stop twice in a row. Abilities Most priests and upgraded barracks units have special abilities. You may notice there are certain parenthetical words next to such abilities. For instance, a Dwarven runepriest has the ability "Protection Rune (sustained)" as part of their abilities. Sustained means that the runepriest must use an action each turn to keep the spells effects going on the target. They must also stay within the range that they first cast the spell. So if a runepriest used protection rune on an adjacent warrior, they would have to follow the warrior if that unit moved, and the runepriest would have to use their action for the season to maintain the spell. Here are some other types of abilities: *'First Strike:' Usually in combat, the combatants attack at the same time. However, first strike allows the unit to do its damage before the other unit acts. For instance, an orc berserker is a 2DMG 1HP unique unit with first strike. If the berserker fights a warrior (1DMG 2HP), then the berserker will do 2DMG, killing the warrior and taking no DMG. If the berserker did not have first strike, then the fight would result in the two combatants both dying. *'Full: A (full) action means that the unit may not move and use this action in one season. If they use the action, they forfeit their movement. Also, if they move, they may not use a full action at the end of their movement. *'''Immediate: Immediate actions are resolved at the very beginning of combat. If two immediate actions interact with each other, then the caster with the highest M has their action take place first. Otherwise, initiative must be established. *'Long Range:' This action or ability does damage, but does not innitiate combat. So you essentially do not get attacked back. *'Perception: '''A unit with perception can see hidden (not invisible) units or buildings. *'Sustained:' All spell-like abilities have a range. Protection Rune is cast on an adjacent ally. Since this spell is sustained, if the runepriest wants to maintain the effect on the unit, the runepriest must stay adjacent to the unit (because the range of the spell was adjacent) and use its action that season to maintain the effect. If a unit maintaining a sustain power is killed, the effect immediately ends. Combat! Combat in the Colonization of Dupree Island is determined by the strength of the units that are used. The only time a die roll is used is for initiative (more on this later). Therefore, there is real strategy in the game. Using your units to cut off the support of priests and hit their weak units is the main part of this game's strategy. The following will be a brief demonstration of combat: Alright, so here is a basic setup for a confrontation. A dwarven warrior (1) and dwarven priest (2) moved up into an undiscovered area. A veteran human warrior (3) and human priest (4) also moved into the area. They ran into each other and spent the rest of their movement sizing each other up. Thus, at the beginning of next season, they will know each others statistics. Which is what happens. ((Just a quick aside, (5) is what a rogue looks like, (6) is a colony, and (7) is a city. These are the default looks, and custom graphics can be used.)) The Dwarven warrior (1) has 1DMG 0AC 2HP. The Dwarven priest (2) has 1DMG 1AC 1HP. The veteran human warrior (3) has 2DMG 0AC 3HP and the human priest (4) has 1DMG 0AC 1HP. It looks like the human is woefully outmatched. But lets see what happens. The dwarven players message looks like this: Warrior engage warrior. Runepriest use Protection Rune on Warrior (1). The human message says: Warrior engage runepriest, Priest engage warrior. Now the GM sorts out what happened. First of all, any attack toward a spellcaster is resolved first. Thus, the veteran human warrior attacks the runepriest first. The veteran human does 2DMG, 1DMG is blocked by the runepriest's armor, but the other 1DMG is enough to kill him. The warrior cheers, but the runepriest dealt 1DMG to him as well, so he now has 2HP. Now, the dwarven warrior is attacking the veteran human, but the human priest is attacking the dwarven warrior. This means initiative must be established. '''Initiative is determined by M (movement speed)', so the unit with the highest M resolves their attack first. However, all these units have the same M, so a die is rolled for each combatant and the highest goes first. In this case the veteran human got the highest roll, followed by the dwarven warrior. The dwarven warrior and veteran human go at it. The veteran human takes 1DMG, reducing him to 1HP, but the dwarven warrior takes 2DMG, killing him. Thus, the combat ends because the humans have killed everyone. Please note: in the above scenario with initiative, the veteran human won so attacked first. If the dwarf had lived through the attack, he would not have attacked again, because he already had combat with his intended the target. The human priest would have attacked the dwarven warrior again, however. So to break it down: *Combat happens all at once. *Combatants choose their actions and then they are resolved. *Attacks against a spellcaster are always resolved first. *Although attacks against spellcasters are always resolved first, they have an incredible powerful action called "ready" which lets them ready an ability to use when a certain trigger is met. However, if the trigger is not met, then the spellcaster essentially wasted the action. Also, if a spellcaster simply uses their ability instead of readying it, then they have to wait until their turn in the intitiative. Here are two examples of why "ready" is so good: #A wood elf druid is standing next to his warrior ally. He readys the Spirit Mend ability with the trigger that it should be cast if his warrior ally is damaged. #A High Elven radiant cleric readies the Radiant Strike ability with the trigger to cast it if they are attacked. Since readied actions are immediate interrupts, the spell would go off and possibly kill the attacking unit before they could damage the cleric. *If there is an initiative order, it is resolved according to M. *If A attacks B and B attacks A and C attacks A, then A and B would fight, then A and C would fight. So even this early in your game experience you can see two important lessons: high movement speeds matter greatly in combat, and spellcasters are extremely vulnerable. The combatants in that instance did not move at all, so here is an example of combat where they move. So an orc berserker (1) moves up and stops because he sees two dwarves. The dwarves do likewise. The orc players writes his moves like this: Orc berserker engages dwarven runepriest. The dwarf player writes: Dwarven runepriest attacks orc berserker. Dwarven warrior moves 5, 5. The berserker has 2DMG 0AC 1HP and the dwarven warpriest has 1DMG 1AC 1HP. It looks like both will die. But wait! The berserker has first strike. So he kills the runepriest. The dwarven warrior is trying to run away. Now we see the victorious berserker, and the dwarven warrior ran away. So now, neither of them can see each other (they only have Ssight 1). However, the berserker saw the dwarf run away, and the dwarf left footprints. Any time that a unit moves away from combat, they leave footprints. So the berserker can try to track him down, which is hard when using units with the same M. Or the orc can return home knowing it will be another year before another runepriest is trained. Our orc is intrepid, however, so he will start following the dwarven warrior. The orc player writes: Orc berserker move 5, 5. It seems like a solid plan. Maybe, the berserker will head him off at the pass. If one unit engages another and the engaged unit tries to move, it is an initiative check to see if the unit moves before combat commences. If the units does move, then the unit that engaged it moves its remaining M (if it has any) following the unit. But what is this?! A veteran dwarven shieldbearer was setting up an ambush in the square that the berserker tried to move into! This stops the orcs movement and forces them into combat immediately. The veteran shieldbearer has 1DMG 3AC 2HP. The orc has 2DMG 0AC 1HP. The orc has first strike, but his DMG is absorbed by the shieldbearer's armor. The dwarf easily kills the orc. So to recap on some important ideas: *If you engage a unit and they try to move, intiative is checked. If they win, they move and you follow using any M you have left. If you win combat commences. *When a unit sets up an ambush, they are hidden from sight (unless this is canceled by an ability like perception). Remember: Every unit can move their full M before taking an action, unless the action is a "full" action. One important thing to remember: strategic, asynchronus combat can seem strange because it is not present in many games. However, once you are use to it, it is very easy and opens up tons of opportunities other than just rolling a dice. Resources There are numerous resources that you have to keep track of. *Culture: Used to advance in tiers. *Food: Used to produce units. *Gold: Used to buy services from villagers and tribesmen. Also used for upper tier buildings. *Happiness: Used to measure how pleased the people are with you. At -10 you lose. *Lumber: Used for most buildings, especially in Tier 1. *Ore: Used for crafsman buildings and upgrades. *Stone: Used for temples and various other buildings. Becomes important in Tier 2. Harvesting Buildings Harvesting is the main way to get resources besides trading. Harvesting buildings include farms, lumber mills, quarries, etc. In order to set up a harvesting building, you must have a resource hex to harvest (such as fertile grassland, forest, etc) and that hex must be within 3 hexes of your home city or within 2 hexes of a colony. Harvesting buildings can be destroyed or sabotaged. To destroy the building, the enemy must reduce its HP to 0. Happiness Happiness is a measure of how people feel about your rule. There are various racial bonuses and buildings that change happiness levels. Many of the decisions you make during situations affect your happiness both positively and negatively. Here are some key thing to remember about happiness: *Being a protector of a city gives you -2 happiness, and being the protector of a village gives you -1 happiness. *For every 2 population you have, you gain -1 happiness. *For being subjugated, you gain -2 happiness. *Each colony gives you -1 happiness. *If you reach -10 happiness, your city and colonies disband and you lose. Villages and Tribes There are numerous villages scattered throughout the island. These natives are varying races and can help you in numerous way. You can trade with them, request military aid, complete quests for them, or combat them. If you defeat a village you may subjugate, destroy, or protect it. In order to trade with a village, you must have a trading post, or both your city and the village must be built on a water source. Villagers have a certain disposition toward you. If you get the disposition high enough, they will ally with you and become a protectorate, which produces an extra culture every turn. Tribesmen can be encountered traveling around as they are nomads. Occasionally they will tell you gossip or give you a quest, though sometimes they require a fee to do so. Subjugation and Protecting When you defeat an enemy city, colony, or village, you gain the option to destroy or subjugate it. Destroying wipes the city, colony, or village off the map and you get a lump sum of resources depending on how advanced they were. Subjugating a city, colony, or village gains you 1/4 of their resources every season (not including food or karma) and they gain -2 happiness. You may free them from subjugation at any time, but they must defeat one of your colonies or your city to start a rebellion and be free of your subjugation. If another player is much smaller than you, they may wish to become your protectorate. This means that you are bound to protect them with your military (of course you can go back on this if you want, but if you go back on your word you lose all benefits from the protectorate and villages will trust you less). Protectorate cities give you +2 culture every season, but you gain -2 happiness. Protectorate villages give you +1 culture every season, but you gain -1 happiness. Tiers There are different tiers of gameplay (think ages in age of empires). You are cut off from the mainland, so you can only utilize the basest of technologies, but as time progresses, you gain more culture and that leads to more complex buildings. Everyone generates 5 culture every season. There are some buildings which generate culture, and some quests or villagers will give you culture. Basically, culture is an excellent strategy to getting ahead in the game as it unlocks better buildings and units. All Tier 2 buildings are undiscovered until someone hits Tier 2. Then they will be unlocked for all to see. Tier 2 is locked until your kingdom has amassed 100 culture. Quests Exploring not only nets you new resources hexes, you may also happen upon tribes/villages to befriend. From time to time, these natives might have quests for you to complete, which can net you extra resources, units, or even magical items that seriously boost your capabilities. Sometimes an islandwide quest will be called and the first to complete it will gain tremendous power. Wanderers can also happen upon your village to give you quests as well. Situations Situations happen at the end of every season and must be resolved by the beginning of the next. They are generally problems that arise in your kingdom or with your neighbors. These situations can just be bad luck, but they can also be opportunities that lead to great treasures. Diplomacy With Other Players Players can ally with each other, but only one can ultimately win. Players can form any sort of bond they want to including private allegiances, public allegiances, guilds, non-aggression pacts, or sworn enemies. To trade with another player, you must have a trading post in your city, be connected to them by a road, or have your city or a colony and their city or a colony both built on a water source that connects them. Military units can be traded, but the unit must actually walk to an agreed upon meeting point before they are transfered. Also, trading with another player reveals the location of their nearest colony or home city, and your nearest colony or city is revealed as well. Interactions with other players take place on the message board in the form of public posts or private messages. Winning the Game Ok, this is all fine and dandy, but how do you win? Well, there is a definite end to this game. Here are the victory conditions: *'Culture Shock:' The first person to Tier 5 culture wins. *'Death Incarnate:' One person destroys every opposing city. *'Mayor:' One person becomes protector of every village. *'Mob Rule:' One person subjugates every village. *'Subjugation': One player subjugates every other player. *'White Knight:' One player becomes protector of every other player. *'Whompy Regicide:' The player who slays Jermaine Dupree wins. Losing the Game There are several ways to lose the game: *Have your home city and all colonies destroyed. *Forfeit. *Reach -10 happiness. Starting Out You start out with 120 lumber, 20 stone, and 20 ore, as well as a warrior. You also get to pick where you put your city. Any buildings you get for "free" as a racial bonus still take time to build. So spend one of your actions on the first season to start building them. Some tips: *Think about how you want to approach this game. Do you want to conquer everyone? Become rich and buy off the villages? Band together with other players and take down Dupree? *Play to your race's strengths. Orcs are dumb, so rushing culture will not work with them, but mass producing their tier 1 unique barracks unit certainly will. *Build a lumber mill! This should be your first priority, unless you're a dwarf. *Scout out as much as possible. You might find some friends or a quest. *It is usually a good idea to keep 1 surplus food. If you lose a farm or fishing boat and have no surplus food, you must destroy a unit. *Make sure to send your rogues to do missions against some villages to get a level or two before trying to infiltrate a rival city. New rogues are not very good and avoiding capture. Creating a "Character" Now that you know a bit about how the game works, we'll talk about creating your character and kingdom. First you should decide what race you will be. This is probably the most important decision you will make, as each race plays quite differently. They are also especially good at differing things. Next, you need to pick what kind of government you have. In Tier 1 there are only 4. Now you need to look at the island map and pick where you want to start. Note, some races restrict where you can start. The easiest way to submit your selection is to download a copy of the map, mark your preferred spot, and message or email it to the GM. Now is the fun part: flavor. You need to decide what kingdom sent you to the island. Make up a leader for your people and a belief system that they follow. Read the race pages for flavor inspiration. If you need help, look at Jermaine Dupree's wiki. After you have done that, make a wiki page for your kingdom and include as much or as little information as you want to. Then you should post an introduction on the message board. After this you should be thinking about how you want to play the game. What is your first move going to be? If you're that sure of yourself, submit the move to the GM and sit back while all the lesser beings quake at your awesomeness. Remember, all actual gameplay and interaction takes place on the message board. The wiki is just for reference.